Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World Digs into 4 Songs from Futures

As Jimmy Eat World gets ready to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their album Futureson Thursday, October 30, at Marquee Theatre, singer/guitarist Jim Adkins reflects on the inspiration behind some of the album tracks, including a number one hit on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, "Pain."

"Pain": "'Pain'" was one of the last songs to get completed," Adkins says. "Actually, I believe it was the last one -- as in, we could do nothing else until I finished lyrics. I took the afternoon off and just walked around [University of Arizona] campus and just finally did it -- didn't stress out, wrote whatever felt like worked with the mood of the song. At the time, I thought it was maybe the throwaway song for the album. Sometimes because it happens easy and fast, it can mess with your head. You trick yourself into thinking because it wasn't this super-labored process, it isn't as worthy as other ones that were. Guess I was wrong because, it ended up being a single."

"Work": "There was something about 'Work' that reminded me of Liz Phair," Adkins says. "Don't know exactly what it was. I always think it's interesting to hear male and female voices contributing to complex-relationship type songs. Our A&R person had a connection with her, so I figured why not just ask Liz Phair to sing with us. She was into it. So in a couple days, we had Liz Phair in the studio in L.A. where we were working doing backups."

"Kill": "I wanted to try writing something that didn't have repeating lyrics," Adkins says. "It seemed like a challenge, and I chose 'Kill' to go for it. Got about as close as I could with it. Some elements I had to keep familiar as it went on, though."

"Futures": "We started working with Gil Norton as a producer and David Schiffman as engineer at Cello studios in L.A., room one," Adkins says. "We recorded drums and some other basic tracks there, and then moved to Tucson to work at Harvey Moltz's home studio. We wanted to not be in California for a change. Tucson felt like a great place to work while still being removed from distractions."